‘I paint the kind of people I’m attracted to’: Hernan Bas on hiding from the world in Venice

Cuban-American artist Hernan Bas has been living in Venice, painting tourists while reflecting on the ironies of mass tourism and his own status as a visitor. His new series, titled "The Visitors," comprises 30 paintings that will be exhibited at Ca' Pesaro, Venice's modern art museum, alongside the Venice Biennale. The works range from bleak to satirical, depicting young white men in tourist scenarios—such as a grinning youth at Holi in India or another cradling a koala—and explore themes of alienation, innocence, and the uncanny. Bas, who is gay, acknowledges that his subjects are often the kind of people he is attracted to, and he emphasizes narrative as central to his practice, aiming to be a conceptual artist who happens to paint.

yoshitomo nara hayward gallery london 2025

The first U.K. public institutional solo exhibition of Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara opened at London's Hayward Gallery in June 2025, featuring over 150 works spanning four decades. The retrospective includes paintings, drawings, sculptures, and installations, such as the large-scale painting "I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight" (2017), which sold for $12.3 million at Sotheby's Hong Kong. Notable visitors include artist Takashi Murakami and collector RM of BTS. The exhibition runs through August 31.

diedrick brackens

Diedrick Brackens, a Los Angeles-based artist known for his woven tapestries, is experiencing a major career moment in 2025. The Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) has opened a large-scale solo exhibition titled "The Shape of Survival" (on view through July 7), while another solo show, "Woven Stories," debuted at the Holburne Museum in Bath, England, marking his U.K. debut. Additionally, his works are featured in group shows at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and Dallas Contemporary. Brackens's tapestries feature silhouetted figures against abstracted backgrounds, and his recent works explore themes of autobiography, history, and mythology, using moody dusk hues to reflect his personal journey from the American South to the West.

guerrilla girls 40th anniversary

The Guerrilla Girls, the anonymous feminist art collective founded in 1985, are celebrating their 40th anniversary with a series of exhibitions and events. In New York, two gallery shows have been held at Hannah Traore Gallery and Mary Ryan Gallery. Later this month, the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) in Washington, D.C., will stage a major solo exhibition of its Guerrilla Girls holdings, titled "Discrimi-NATION: Guerrilla Girls on Bias, Money, and Art." The collective is also receiving an award at NMWA's upcoming gala and has launched a campaign to encourage donors to help the museum acquire the complete "Portfolio Compleat" of all their works.

Record-Breaking $110.5 M. Basquiat Painting, Now Owned by Ken Griffin, to Go on View in Miami This Summer

The Pérez Art Museum Miami will present "Basquiat: Figures, Signs, Symbols," an exhibition of approximately ten works by Jean-Michel Basquiat from the collection of billionaire Kenneth C. Griffin. Opening June 25, the show includes the record-breaking 1982 painting "Untitled," which sold for $110.5 million in 2017 and was later acquired by Griffin, alongside other major paintings and a sculpture.

Barry X Ball’s Wild Sculptures Are Perfectly at Home at Venice’s Grand Basilica of San Giorgio Maggiore

New York-based artist Barry X Ball's exhibition "The Shape of Time" has opened at the Abbey of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice, featuring 23 sculptures centered on the elaborate silver and gold piece *Pope Saint John Paul II* (2012–24). The show, organized by curator Bob Nickas, includes many works shown publicly for the first time, such as *Pietà* (2011–22) inspired by Michelangelo and *Saint Bartholomew Flayed* (2011–20). The sculpture of John Paul II, cast in collaboration with Italian jewelry house Damiani, contains hidden references to the pope's life, including his nemeses Hitler, Stalin, and Lenin, as well as a bullet from the 1981 assassination attempt.

Amy Sherald comes home

Amy Sherald, the celebrated painter known for her official portrait of former first lady Michelle Obama, brings her traveling exhibition 'American Sublime' to Atlanta's High Museum of Art, where it will be on view from May 15 to September 27. The show, the largest presentation of her work to date, marks a homecoming for Sherald, who was born in Columbus, Georgia, and graduated from Clark Atlanta University. The exhibition includes paintings that explore themes of identity, the American South, and the Black experience, and features works such as 'A God Blessed Land (Empire of Dirt)' (2022) and 'They Call Me Redbone, but I'd Rather Be Strawberry Shortcake' (2009).

Wes Anderson to recreate Joseph Cornell’s studio at Gagosian Paris.

Filmmaker Wes Anderson, in collaboration with curator Jasper Sharp, will recreate the New York studio of American assemblage artist Joseph Cornell at Gagosian Paris. The exhibition, titled “The House on Utopia Parkway,” opens December 16th and marks Cornell’s first solo presentation in Paris in over 40 years. It will feature over 300 items from Cornell’s personal collection, including key works such as *Pharmacy* (1943), *Untitled (Pinturicchio Boy)* (ca. 1950), and *A Dessing Room for Gille* (1939), along with loans from the Joseph Cornell Study Center at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The installation, designed with exhibition designer Cécile Dégos and Anderson’s longtime collaborators, will reconstruct Cornell’s work table and include shadow boxes, assemblages, and ephemera that reflect his fascination with collecting and memory.

Michelangelo and Rodin as an 'Artistic Couple'

Michel-Ange et Rodin en « couple artistique »

The Louvre Museum in Paris presents a major exhibition pairing Michelangelo and Auguste Rodin as an "artistic couple," curated by Chloé Ariot of the Musée Rodin and Marc Bormand of the Louvre. The show features over 200 works, including three marble sculptures by Michelangelo—the Slaves and a Christ on the Cross—alongside drawings, plaster casts, and works by Rodin such as the monumental Balzac. It also includes pieces by contemporaries and later artists like Joseph Beuys, Jana Sterbak, Giuseppe Penone, and Bruce Nauman to trace the sculptors' shared legacy.

Edmonia Lewis Was the Earliest Known Black Artist to Depict Emancipation. This Is Her First Retrospective.

The Peabody Essex Museum is hosting "Said in Stone," the first-ever comprehensive retrospective dedicated to Edmonia Lewis, a pioneering 19th-century sculptor of Black and Ojibwe heritage. The exhibition assembles a significant body of her marble works, including the landmark sculpture "Forever Free" (1867), which is recognized as the first formal visual representation of emancipation by a Black American artist. The show traces her journey from her upbringing with her Ojibwe family and her traumatic years at Oberlin College to her eventual success as an expatriate artist in Rome.

17th century spain fashion

A new exhibition at the Hispanic Society Museum & Library in New York, titled "Spanish Style: Fashion Illuminated, 1550–1700," explores how 17th-century Spanish fashion was governed by strict moral and legal codes. Curator Amanda Wunder highlights that garments like the guardainfante hoop skirt and the ruffled collar were regulated by kings and clergy, with women fined or barred from church for revealing shoulders or wearing lace, and men criticized for effeminate styles. The show features portraits and artifacts that reveal how clothing was used as a tool of social control, power, and gender policing in Habsburg Spain.

Sue Webster: Fandoms and Icons

Sue Webster's solo exhibition 'Birth of an Icon' at Firstsite in Colchester traces her lifelong obsession with pop culture, from teenage fandom of Siouxsie Sioux to her evolution as an artist. The show features a sprawling installation 'The Crime Scene' (2017–) that maps her personal history through albums, newspaper clippings, and objects, alongside painted jackets and self-portraits. It marks a departure from her earlier work as half of the duo Tim Noble and Sue Webster, embracing a more personal, amateurish style that reflects her journey through adolescence, marriage dissolution, and motherhood.

korean artist kim yun shin

Korean artist Kim Yun Shin, who turns 90 in 2025, is currently the subject of a two-part solo exhibition spanning Lehmann Maupin's London and New York galleries. Titled after her series "Add Two Add One, Divide Two Divide One," which began in 1975, the shows opened in February 2025 at the gallery's temporary Cork Street space in London and continue at its New York location through May 31, 2025. The exhibitions draw on Eastern philosophy of Yin and Yang, exploring themes of union and division. This follows her debut at the 2024 Venice Biennale, where curator Adriano Pedrosa selected eight of her sculptures for the Central Pavilion under the theme "Foreigners Everywhere." In an interview, Kim discusses her nomadic life—from North Korea to South Korea, Paris, Argentina, and back—and how her experiences as a foreigner shaped her artistic perspective.

May You Live in Interesting Times — The IFPDA Print Fair Asks, Do Bad Times Really Inspire Great Art?

The 2026 IFPDA Print Fair, featuring over 80 exhibitors at New York's Park Avenue Armory, explores the provocative theme of whether societal crises and 'bad times' inspire great art. The fair presents a historical survey of printmaking as a medium for dissent and therapy, showcasing works from Francisco Goya's anti-war etchings to Kara Walker's critiques of racial injustice, German Expressionist responses to post-WWI turmoil, and contemporary pieces addressing ongoing conflicts.

anna marie tendler other art fair

Anna Marie Tendler is presenting her interactive "House of Self Portrait Booth" at the Other Art Fair in Brooklyn, where she photographs fairgoers in a darkly romantic style inspired by her acclaimed 2021 self-portrait series "Rooms in the First House." The booth, which has previously appeared at the fair's Los Angeles and Chicago editions, features props from Tendler's own home, including a horned skull, a gramophone, and Victorian-style lampshades. Tendler's original series emerged from a period of personal struggle following her highly publicized divorce from comedian John Mulaney and an extended stay in a psychiatric hospital.

A Show in Rome Sheds New Light on Francesca Woodman’s Haunting Images

A new exhibition in Rome offers fresh insight into the haunting and influential work of American photographer Francesca Woodman, who died by suicide at age 22. The show presents her ethereal, often unsettling self-portraits and other images, exploring the depth and enduring power of her brief but prolific career.

Baltimore-based artist Linling Lu on weaving color, culture, and music into her work

Baltimore-based artist Linling Lu, who trained as a classical pianist in southern China, discusses her work *Circle Dance* on view at the Frary Gallery in the Hopkins Bloomberg Center. The metal print features ten concentric orbs inspired by circle dances, geometry, and Renaissance tondos. Lu explains how her background in music informs her visual art, comparing color to a musical element and citing influences from Henri Matisse, Stravinsky, and tribal Miao circle dances. She also previews her upcoming solo exhibition *Fugue in 3 Voices* at Artis—Naples, The Baker Museum, which will respond to compositions by Dvořák, Stravinsky, and Beethoven.

Exhibition | Tommaso Spazzini Villa, 'The Time That’s Left' at TOTAH, New York, United States

TOTAH gallery in New York presents 'The Time That’s Left', a solo exhibition of works by Italian artist Tommaso Spazzini Villa, opening May 14, 2026. The show expands on his recent large-scale mural on West 45th Street in Hell’s Kitchen, moving from public space to an intimate gallery setting. It features graphite drawings traced across antique book pages—sacred texts, epic poetry, theatre scores—depicting root-like forms that challenge linear language, alongside metal box sculptures with wire, light, and dried leaves that create fleeting shadow dioramas.

Art as survival: US artists' anti-war artefacts exhibited in Tehran

An anti-war exhibition titled "Art and War" has opened at a top museum in Tehran, featuring works by American pop artists Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Indiana, and James Rosenquist. The pieces, including Rosenquist's "F-111" and Lichtenstein's "Brattata," were selected for their anti-war themes and come from the museum's major collection of American and European modern art, acquired in the 1970s by former Empress Farah Pahlavi and largely kept from public view since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The exhibition opened amid ongoing tensions and a recent ceasefire in the Middle East, with the museum director stating it was a deliberate response to current events.

Maria Lassnig and Edvard Munch's exhibition

The Hamburger Kunsthalle in Hamburg, Germany, presents a major double exhibition pairing Austrian artist Maria Lassnig (1919–2014) with Norwegian painter Edvard Munch (1863–1944) for the first time. Featuring nearly 200 works—including paintings, works on paper, sculptures, films, and photographs—the show highlights parallels between the two artists across a half-century gap, tracing Munch’s influence on Lassnig and revealing new aspects of both oeuvres. Key works include Munch’s *Madonna* (1893–1895) and Lassnig’s *Traditionskette* (1983), with the exhibition organized into 13 chapters plus a prologue and epilogue exploring themes such as self-portraits, gender, nature, and mortality.

Monumental exhibition of works by Anselm Kiefer heads to the Saint Louis Art Museum

The Saint Louis Art Museum will host "Becoming the Sea," a monumental exhibition of works by German artist Anselm Kiefer, from October 18, 2025 through January 25, 2026. The show marks Kiefer's first U.S. retrospective in 20 years and features towering works up to 30 feet tall, including site-specific pieces inspired by the Mississippi and Rhine rivers. Curated by museum director Min Jung Kim and assistant curator Melissa Venator in direct collaboration with the 80-year-old artist, the exhibition will fill the museum's Sculpture Hall and contemporary galleries with over 30 loans from other collections, requiring custom installation systems and even the removal of a doorway to accommodate a large painting.

Step into the fire. A new exhibition ignites the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth

Dallas-based artist David-Jeremiah presents his solo exhibition "The Fire This Time" at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, featuring 27 shaped paintings created between 2020 and 2024. The paintings are shaped like Lamborghini hoods and arranged in clusters that invite visitors to stand at the center, becoming the focal point of an "inverted performance installation." Curated by Christopher Blay, the show spans four rooms and explores themes of beauty, violence, identity, and transformation, drawing inspiration from James Baldwin's "The Fire Next Time." The exhibition also includes works from the museum's permanent collection by John Chamberlain, Anselm Kiefer, and Mark Rothko that resonate with the show's themes.

Landmark George Morrison show foregrounds Abstract Expressionism’s debt to Native art

A new exhibition at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, titled "The Magical City: George Morrison’s New York," showcases the largest-ever show of works by Ojibwe abstract painter George Morrison (1919-2000). Running until 31 May 2026, the exhibition features 25 works and archival materials, highlighting Morrison's Abstract Expressionist style and the tension between his life in New York City and his roots on the Grand Portage Chippewa reservation. The show includes pieces like "The Antagonist" (1956) and "Aureate Vertical" (1958), revealing his dual experiences of urban glamour and Native displacement.

At the Amon Carter Museum, two exhibitions explore the American West

Two concurrent exhibitions at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth explore the American West from distinct perspectives. "Richard Avedon at the Carter" marks the 40th anniversary of Avedon's landmark 1985 series "In the American West," featuring 124 unflinching portraits of working-class subjects like oilfield workers and ranchers, alongside archival photographs by Laura Wilson that show the project's human side. Across the hall, "East of the Pacific: Making Histories of Asian American Art" presents 48 works from the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, spanning from the 1849 gold rush to the present, highlighting Asian American artists including Bernice Bing, Roger Shimomura, Chiura Obata, and Toshiko Takaezu.

Inuk artist launches first solo exhibition in U.K. gallery

Inuk artist Laakkuluk Williamson has opened her first solo exhibition, titled *Nuliaminik Neqilik*, at Mimosa House gallery in London. The show draws on a Greenlandic tale of a cannibal and his seventh wife, Masaannaaq, as a metaphor for Inuit resistance against colonial powers. It features beadwork, photography, film, vocal performances, and enlarged replicas of historic Inuit objects from the British Museum. The exhibition opened with an immersive performance at the British Museum and was curated by fellow Inuk artist Taqrilik Partridge. After its London run, the show will travel to the Nuuk Art Museum in Greenland and then to Ottawa.

“Voglio porre domande che non avranno mai risposte”. Intervista all’artista Ndayé Kouagou in mostra a Reggio Emilia

Ndayé Kouagou, an artist from Montreuil (1992) based in Paris, presents his first solo exhibition in Italy, "Heaven's truth," at Collezione Maramotti in Reggio Emilia, running until July 26, 2026. The show features his video installation "A coin is a coin" (2022) and is part of the 21st edition of Fotografia Europea 2026, themed "Fantasmi del quotidiano." During the opening, Kouagou performed with poet and actress Salber Lee Williams, composing and deconstructing phrases into the expression "Please Be Yourself." The exhibition will travel to Heidelberger Kunstverein from September 3, and new works co-produced with the institution will appear at the 18th Lyon Biennale (September 19 – December 13, 2026). In an interview, Kouagou discusses his background as a self-taught visual artist and performer, having worked as a motion designer in advertising and as a DJ, and emphasizes writing as his central expressive medium, comparing himself more to a writer than a visual artist.

Sung Tieu on Representing Germany at the 61st Venice Biennale

Sung Tieu, who is co-representing Germany at the 61st Venice Biennale alongside Henrike Naumann, responds to a questionnaire from ArtReview about her plans for the German Pavilion. She describes her inspiration as her mother and childhood home, a site built for foreign contract workers in the GDR that later became a refuge for the diaspora. Tieu states that her work relates to the Biennale theme "In Minor Keys" through the lens of Gehrenseestrasse, a concrete record of collective memory. She also expresses skepticism about the Biennale's importance, noting that the German Pavilion's fascist architecture compels artists to work against it, and that national pavilions reveal how much work remains in undoing nationalism.

Aki Sasamoto Serves It Hot From the Griddle

Artist Aki Sasamoto has opened a new solo exhibition at Studio Voltaire in London. The show features her signature blend of performance and sculptural objects, with the central motif emerging from a beach-house grill, grounding the work in personal narrative and physical process.

New exhibition in the Colorado Capitol’s Rotunda Gallery celebrates women artists

A new exhibition titled "Living Tradition. Past. Present. Future. Colorado Women Artists" has opened in the Colorado State Capitol's Rotunda Gallery, featuring 12 mobile murals honoring past, present, and future women artists from Colorado. Organized by the Women's Caucus for Art Colorado Chapter (WCACO) over four years, the show also includes additional works in the Governor's and Lieutenant Governor's offices. The murals, created collaboratively by a team of female artists, depict black-and-white portraits of each honoree surrounded by imagery from their own work, with finishing touches applied by designated "Face Whisperers."

New York museum celebrates boundary-pushing artist behind Central Park’s Bethesda Fountain

The Heckscher Museum of Art in Huntington, New York, has opened "Carving Out History," the first-ever exhibition dedicated solely to 19th-century sculptor Emma Stebbins, creator of Central Park's iconic Bethesda Fountain. Curator Karli Wurzelbacher spent over five years assembling 14 marble sculptures from around the world, including pieces from Oregon, Rome, and Belfast, after a descendant of the artist contacted the museum in 2021. The exhibition is accompanied by a 256-page book and aims to establish Stebbins among the canon of great Neo-Classical sculptors.